How open is your leadership team to new strategic directions?

Our reader poll today asks: How open is your leadership team to new strategic directions?

• Very: They’re happy to shift to a new strategy that makes more sense 25.85%
• Somewhat: It takes strong effort to compel change 37.64%
• Not very: It takes a massive market shift to get them to move 26.40%
• Not at all: Don’t even bother talking to them about new directions 10.11%

Moving with the market. 62% of you expressed a willingness on your leadership team’s part to shift strategy as the market shifts and new opportunities emerge. A word of caution here – be sure you’ve set out a clear mission and vision for the organization to serve as a north star. Without that, you risk meandering and getting distracted by the latest trend instead of driving your organization to a chosen destination. Being too willing to change course can put you at a disadvantage versus more focused competitors. For those with leadership teams less willing or even unwilling to shift, recognize the market is always moving. Either you change your business or the market will change it for you with the latter being significantly less desirable. If they’re unwilling to move, show them a cost of inaction – what does their world look like in the future if they don’t take action today? Sometimes seeing that stark future picture can spur them into action.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.